adg211288 The Deceived (2014) is the second full-length album by Dutch death metal act Dictated. Dictated have been around since 2006 with a pretty fluctuating line-up revolving around guitarists Sonja Schuringa and Jessica Otten and The Deceived features another iteration of the group compared to that which played on debut album Summary of Retribution (2010). While new vocalist York Keijzer appears to be a newcomer to the metal scene the rhythm section of The Deceived has been handled, on a session basis, by God Dethroned members Henri Sattler and Michiel van der Plich, which will no doubt be a point of intrigue for fans of Dutch death metal.

I find the music on The Deceived to be very standard fare though. It's competently played stuff and delivered with enough strengths to make the album an easy enough listen for me - I do tend to find that my attention wanders during most of the more 'straight up' death metal records as the songs begin to blend together a bit too much, so being able to listen to one from start to finish without that happening is, for me at least, a sign that I've found something of reasonable quality, if not originality. And I don't honestly expect that listeners who are reasonably well versed in death metal will find anything out of the ordinary in the way the two guitarists throw in tremolo riffs, slower and heavier playing and even the odd really thrashy part, but for me the thirty-five minute album gets the job done better than most.

While I doubt it'll exactly wow many listeners, The Deceived is a solid enough death metal release from Dictated. There's certainly talent here (and I'm not just referring to the two more well known musicians) but to me it doesn't feel as if they've reached their full potential yet. For The Deceived a 3.5 star rating seems fairest.

73/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/dictated-the-deceived-t3726.html)